My Dryer Is A Portal to Other Worlds? Volume III
by DrJolly
Summary: Monica thinks she's going back to the Pirates of the Caribbean world, so imagine her surprise when she's transported to the Brothers Grimm world instead!  Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I sure would like to own those brothers.
1. Chapter 1

I was doing the laundry. Again. I had become quite a machine at it, always feeling thrills of excitement when I was around my precious old, green, somehow magical dryer.

But I hadn't been able to go back yet. It had been two weeks since my last adventure had ended, and now all I could think about was getting back to the Pirates of the Caribbean world to see Jack again.

My sisters had been suffering, too. (If you haven't seen At World's End yet, stop reading!!) Alison, upon witnessing the death of James, would probably burst into tears if it weren't for Michelle whispering hurriedly that that can't have happened, considering what had happened when we were there, which was completely different.

Even so, Alison, and Michelle (who had endured much pain seeing Will being killed and remaining faithful to Elizabeth), despite the explanation that there was no way that that could have actually happened, just weren't the same from that day on. Mom, of course, just assumed it was because of the anniversary of our dad's death.

After Michelle and Alison returned to college to spend the remainder of the summer with their friends, somehow still able to face the bleak concept of continuing on with normal school life, I was obsessively waiting for the time to come to finally return. But I never seemed to get a chance to have 30 minutes alone so my mother would have no idea that I was in a different world for 30 days--or minutes, depending on how you look at it.

But today was the day. Today, my mother was driving downtown for a job interview--a drive that took about 30 minutes, which gave me plenty of time to raise hell with Jack.

Too bad that's not where I ended up going.

So anyway, there I was doing the laundry, eager for my mother to leave so I could spend some time alone with the dryer. I now knew, thanks to Michelle, who had told us what had happened when she had killed herself in the Pirates world and came back, that it only transported me when I had a white load in there and then opened it while it was going to put another article of clothing in there.

What I _didn't_ know was that as the article of clothing changed, so did the world I would be transported to.

"How do I look?" Mom asked breathlessly for the frillionth time as I shoved wet white clothes into the dryer, barely able to contain my excitement.

"Very professional," I replied automatically, not even looking at her. "You'll do fine."

"Hopefully...although this should only be temporary...I'd hate to make that commute every day..." Biting her lip, my mother pawed through her purse for her keys. "If we're lucky, I'll have that new job closer to here by your birthday.

_Oh, yeah, my birthday's coming up!_ I thought vaguely. The thought of turning 16 had barely crossed my mind, seeing how I was a little preoccupied with the portal in the laundry room.

I grunted as I stood up to heave more wet whites from the washer into the dryer, while still being careful to leave a shirt in there to use for later. A pretty big mistake, I guess.

"We really should get a new dryer..." Mom mused, watching my struggle as I bent down to shove the clothes in there.

"NO!" I yelled, standing up and spinning to face her, not realizing how strongly I had reacted until seeing the shocked look on her face.

"Uhh...you know, dryers are so damn expensive these days," I said awkwardly, my face reddening. "Why throw this one out when it works just fine?"

Smiling widely to convince my mother that I wasn't obsessed with the old green dryer, I gave it a friendly pat on the top. I guess I overdid it, though--the force of my blow made one hinge of the open door rattle dangerously.

As I grimaced at the thing, my mother, clearly having no time for my oddities, said, "Right, well, I'd better go--wish me luck! Oh, and don't forget to send the Netflix movies back!"

"Yeah, got it." What had they been again? The Brothers Grimm--God, I loved that movie--and something else...oh, well, not important.

And with that, Mom left. I waited to hear her car leave the driveway before I reacted.

As I shoved even more clothes into my dryer hurriedly, I began to wish I had dressed better--sure, I usually managed to get Pirate-suitable clothes there, but somehow I didn't think my cutoff jean shorts and black tank top would go over to well there.

_Oh, well,_ I thought, taking the wet white T-shirt that remained in my hands. _I could change, but what would I wear? And I don't want to wait anymore; I just want to GO!_

I slammed the door of the dryer and turned it on. As it chugged to life, I took a deep breath, looking at the wet shirt in my--

"Dammit! Netflix!"

_Screw the Netflix! GO!_

So I opened the dryer, shoved the shirt in, and with lingering thoughts of the movie I hadn't sent back, I was pulled through my dryer to the now almost-familiar blinding light and deafening whooshing.

Yeah, I only THOUGHT I was going back to the Pirates world. What a sucker I am.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as I landed, I got up excitedly, having landed (as usual) rather clumsily. After quickly brushing the dirt off my clothes, I looked around, half-expecting Jack to pop up at any moment and suggest some new, exciting adventure.

As I looked around, however, it was clear that I wasn't in the Pirates world.

For one thing, there was no trace of water anywhere. This may not seem like much, but I had been somehow expecting to see the beautiful Caribbean sea again. After noting this, I was slightly crestfallen.

The next thing I noticed was the terrain I was on. It wasn't a dock, or the sand of a beach, or even the paved road of some port. At first noticing the dirt, I thought I was on some path, perhaps in Tortuga, but as I registered my surroundings, it couldn't have been clearer that I wasn't on some Caribbean island: there were pine and oak trees.

Now with my spirits down considerably, though still with a small sliver of hope, I noticed the third nail that was to be nailed into my virtual Pirates-less coffin: the climate.

This definitely wasn't the humidity of the Caribbean, something I had become quite used to. In fact, as I stood there blankly, a cool breeze whipped around me, making me rub my bare arms in alarm.

_Dear God, where the hell AM I?!_ I thought, now beginning to panic. Rubbing my arms fervishly in more of an attempt to calm myself down than to warm myself up, I swiveled on the spot, as if hoping that I'd see a familiar beach behind me. But all I saw was an unfamiliar beech. Haha.

"Don't freak. Don't freak," I muttered to myself wildly, turning in a circle. I now saw a wooden cabin about 100 yards away in the clearing I was in--I had just noticed that the area I was in was surrounded with huge, dark trees, not helping my nervous state one bit.

"Don't freak."

_What do I do?!_

"Don't freak."

_Where could I be?!_

"Don't freak."

_I don't think we're in the Caribbean anymore, Toto!_

"Don't..._frick!_"

I jumped as my bare foot stood on a sharp twig as I slowly revolved on the spot. Now definitely about to freak, I attempted several long, deep breaths, trying not to hyperventilate.

It didn't work.

"Arguhgugh!!" This was a strange noise, a part scream, part groan, part sob. I was torn between screaming and keeping quiet in case someone--or something--realized that I had just dropped out of the sky.

Now, I know you must be wondering why I was freaking out instead of just exploring my surroundings and trying to figure out where I was. Well, first of all, it's me. You should be used to my freak fits.

Second of all, I had been sure--_so sure_--that I was going to see Jack again, that I would feel that warm Caribbean breeze, that I would be sailing on the Black Pearl with all the ocean stretching out before us, along with all the opportunities of adventure...but here I was.

Wherever "here" was.

I located a nearby log and shakily lowered myself down onto it, hoping to steady my breathing and my thoughts. Putting my head in my hands, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think.

_Okay,_ I thought, managing to take a successful deep breath. _You don't know where you are--or when, for that matter. You do know that you're not in the Caribbean, and you're not in your old world._

This thought made me pause. _Could_ I be in my normal world? I had no idea how the dryer worked--after all, I had just assumed I would be transported to the Pirates world, and now here I was in the middle of nowhere.

_Whatever,_ I thought. _It doesn't matter, because I don't think there's any way of figuring that out, unless I go traipsing around, alerting others to my presence--my oddly dressed, strange-talking, freaked-looking presence._

This train of thought calmed me down somewhat. I was right: there wasn't much I could do in my present state besides look around, so what was the point in worrying about it? Sure, there was the option of killing myself to return to my own world, but amazingly, exploring seemed like a superior alternative to suicide. Plus, if there _was_ someone or something out there that would be inclined to kill me, all that would happen would be my return to my laundry room--right?

Frankly, I didn't feel much like facing the idea of my own death, even if I owuld just be sent back home. Plus, what if it hurt?

On this not-very-heartening note, I stood up from the log, brushed the dried moss from the back of my legs, and focused on the cabin in the clearing.

"Let's see what mysteries you hold," I said aloud, setting off towards it.

After a walk that would have taken a much shorter time had I been wearing shoes, I finally arrived at the cabin. By the look of it, this cabin was no modern piece of work, so I assumed I was in some past tense place.

Hoping I could find some clothes that suited the place I was in better--and maybe some food, too, I had just realized that I was pretty hungry-- I circled around the house and found the front door, noticing that a path led from it into the dark forest. Looking around nervously as if the three bears were about to come to eat whoever it was that was about to enter their home, I wondered if I should knock.

I did so, before I could scare myself any further. This old cabin gave aoff a feeling of distinct creepiness.

When no one answered, I pushed the door open, feeling slightly reckless.

No one was there.

Poking my head around various corners, my search of the house revealed mostly nothing. I was lucky enough to find a dress in one of the cabinets--in fact, it was full of them.

_Guess there must be a family of chicks here,_ I thought, bemusedly changing into it. It was quite simple, just a plain, dull red-colored dress, made out of simple cloth material. This furthered my suspicion that I was in a past place.

Although I would have preferred pants if I was going to be exploring a potentially dangerous place, I couldn't seem to find any, so I decided to make do with the dress.

I shoved my black tank top and jean shorts into the cabinet, figuring I would be long gone before anyone discovered them. Upon searching another cabinet, I found a shitload of shoes.

Every girl's dream, right?

Well, not if one of your feet is size 9 and the other is size 9 1/2.

Needless to say, I had some trouble finding shoes that fit my large feet. I ended up having to wear two different ones, and they both, like, totally clashed with my dress.

Finally done getting into the garb of wherever and whenever I was, I started creeping around the house some more. My exlporing--mostly for food, as I had realized how hungry I was while looking for shoes--turned up nothing that impressive, until I heard a voice above my head.

"Turn back, turn back, young maiden dear,  
'Tis a murderer's house you enter here."

Eyes wide and mouth slightly open in shock, I looked up to see a small bird in a cage hanging above me. As I stared up at me, it repeated its eerie message.

Why didn't I run out of there screaming? One word, love: curiosity.

The bird's words seemed oddly familiar, too, though I couldn't place where I had heard them...

Also, I knew that if I were murdered, I'd still live. Heh.

"Don't freak," I said again. Then, I steeled myself with another thought: "Hey, I'm freakin' immortal!"

Before the adrenaline pumping through my veins could force me to run far, far away, I started down a flight of stairs I had noticed earlier and neglected to explore. Feeling terrified, yet at the same time strangely exhilarated, I crept down the stairs, wondering what I would encounter.

As I entered what must have been the cellar, I nearly shit my new dress as I spotted an extremely old woman. She seemed to be shaking uncontrollably, and I wasn't sure if it was from her old age or the slight chill that was down here.

"Are you the murderer?" I asked stupidly.

She turned her trembling head to look at me. "Why are you here?" she asked, in an alarmed voice that sounded as whithered as she looked.

"I was, uh, exploring," I said lamely, not really knowing what to say other than the truth at this point. "Yeah, I was looking for some food, if you've got it...whatcha got cookin'?" I asked, nodding toward the large, steaming pot she was sitting by in the hearth.

I guess the aforementioned adrenaline caused me to be more bold than I normally would have been. While mentally kicking myself for being so forward, the ancient woman answered.

"I am forced to keep this kettle boiling for the men who live here," she said, not taking her squinting eyes off me. "When they find you, they will murder you, chop you up, cook you, and eat you."

"So they're the murderers," I muttered. Then, something dawned on me.

The bird's words (heh, that rhymed)--I remembered where they had come from! I remembered reading this story somewhere!

_I'm in a story?_ I thought, bewildered. You see, I didn't know that Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm had written this story. If I did, it probably would have saved me a lot of trouble.

"Right! Well, I'm just gonna mosey on outta here," I said, smiling warmly and preparing to bolt up the stairs as I struggled to remember the story. All I knew was that bad things happened to young girls in this place.

At that moment, however, there was a slamming noise from above, followed by raucous laughter and punctuated with high-pitched screams.

"Hide here!" the old woman said, leaping up with surprising speed and leading me behind a giant barrel. "When they fall asleep tonight, we'll escape...stay here, and stay quiet!"

I allowed myself to be shoved behind the barrel, terrified out of my mind. You can imagine what an idiot I felt like for not hoofing it out of there when the bird warned me to.

Soon enough, a group of men appeared, dragging a young girl who didn't look much older than I was down the stairs. She was screaming and crying, but the men ignored her--they all appeared to be drunk.

Petrified, I watched as the men force-fed the crying girl three glasses of different colored wine, which to my horror killed her. I had to bite the back of my hand to keep from gasping as her body went limp after swallowing the last gulp of wine. At that, the men tore off her dress, and I felt a feeling of dread, now knowing where my own dress had come from.

Laying the girl's body on the table, they then produced knifes and proceeded to cut her open--I shut my eyes tightly, willing myself not to throw up. As I chanced a glance back at them, I realized that they were pouring salt on her maimed body. I let out the tiniest whimper of horror--fortunately no one heard it.

One of the men noticed a golden ring on one of the girl's pinkies. After failing in wrenching it off, he took and axe and hacked her finger off.

I watched in horror as the finger flew through the air toward me--and fell down the front of the dress I was wearing.

Somehow managing not to scream, I trembled silently behind the barrel as the man yelled angrily, "Where'd it go?!", searching for the lost finger.

"Have you tried behind the hogshead?" one of the other men askd nonchalantly, shaking more salt on the girl's body.

I was sure he would see me, sure he would look behind the barrel, seize me, and kill me just as they had the other girl--but the old woman said quickly, "Come eat now, you can look in the morning; that finger's not going anywhere."

Breathing a silent sigh of relief, I watched as the man turned away from my hiding place, muttering, "Yeah, you're right."

Soon all the evil men were sitting at the table, ready to feast on the young girl's flesh. Horrified, I chanced a glance at the old woman, who I noticed was pouring something into their wine glasses...

As soon as they had all taken sips of their wine, they were asleep, snoring loudly. Petrified, I didn't move until the old woman motioned toward me.

"Come, child! We must hurry!"

Still trembling uncontrollably like the old woman, I stood up, trying not to look at the body that still lay on the table. Some of the men had slid to the floor in their slumber, and I somehow managed to step over them without tripping. Once across the room, I remembered the girl's finger. I fished it out of the top of my dress and was about to step back to lay it with the rest of her body when the old woman said, "I'll take that, my dear..."

At first I thought she wanted the ring, but then I realized that she could use it for evidence, recalling the story.

The old woman and I ran upstairs, out of the house, and into the sunset-washed clearing. the old woman pointed the way down the path, and we started down it, entering the dark forest just as night fell.

"Jesus," I whispered, fully in shock. "_Jesus_."

Had that just really happened?

Feeling oddly unreal at witnessing the the murder, butchering, and almost eating of the girl, my mind slowly put the pieces of what I had just seen and the story I had read together: indeed, that had been almost exactly what had happened in the story, if I remembered correctly.

So why the hell had that just happened?!

I had no idea, of course, that I would tell Will and Jake about this experience, they would write about it, and it would come out as "The Robber Bridegroom".

The old woman pulled my away from my confused thoughts. "I must bring this to the townspeople," she said, holding up the girl's finger. "I will use it as evidence of what those monsters have done."

"And they'll be executed," I said tonelessly, staring off into the moonlight as we walked.

"Pardon me?"

"They'll be executed," I repeated, feeling like someone else was using my mouth to speak these words.

"Well, yes, I hope so, but--"

"They will be," I repeated, still staring off into space.

I caught the strange look the old woman gave me out of the corner of my eye. "When we get to the town, the people will take care of you there," she said soothingly.

"I'm not from the town," I said distantly.

The old woman seemed not to know what to say to this. After a pause, she asked, "What's your name, dear?"

"Monica Spa--Connors," I said, blinking hard to come back down to earth. "And can I ask, where exactly is this town?"

"About a day's walk from here."

"No, I mean...what country are we in?"

I got another strange look from the old woman. "Germany, dear."

I was surprised I didn't faint.


	3. Chapter 3

As the old woman and I stumped through the dark, scary forest on the moonlit path, I was still considerably freaked about what had happened in that old cabin. I still had no idea what world I was in, but I had learned that I was in Germany, which should have been a big clue. I considered asking the old woman what year it was, but then I thought that I wouldn't be able to make any sense of that either, due to my lack of knowledge of history.

Or, you know, whatever year The Brothers Grimm took place in.

Anyway, so this old chick and I walked through the night through the dark, scary forest...yeah, I covered that.

Okay, so just as the sun was rising, we finally got to the little town she had told me about. It was a tiny village, somehow managing to look dull and drab in the spectacular colors of the rising sun. The path just seemed to drop off at the edge of the town, leaving a maze of muddy roads to wind clumsily through the various buildings scattered throughout the walled area.

Wishing I had something to warm me up other than the dress I had stolen, I rubbed my arms, trying not to shiver in the dim light of the new day.

The old woman stopped at the edge of the village, and I did too, not really knowing what else to do. I looked at her for instruction, thinking that she had led me pretty damn well this far.

"You must find some work here," she said as I parked it next to her.

"Why?" I asked blankly.

"If the robbers come into town, I don't think it would be best if they found a young girl out wandering around on her own," she said, giving me a pointed look.

I had to agree, trying not to think about what would happen if I were captured by them...I shook the shadows of imaginings out of my mind as the old woman spoke again.

"Come, I'll take you to the house of my son and his wife...they're good people, they'll take care of you."

Feeling too shell-shocked to protest the idea of my becoming a servant girl in a stranger's house, I followed her through the muddy roads.

_She has a point, though,_ I mused as we walked, staring at the mud collecting on my mismatched shoes and the hem of my dress. _If I stay with them, there's a hell of a better chance I won't get captured by those psychos..._

I tried to think of how I would figure out where I was while working as a servant, but decided I was too tired from walking all night to think much of anything at the moment. As I was dwelling on thoughts of how different this time through the dryer was compared to my other two times, the old woman stopped. I stopped too, swaying slightly and blinking as I looked up to see us in front of a small, modest house with what seemed to be a walled garden behind it.

The old woman knocked on the door, and I tried to concentrate on staying on my feet. I hadn't realized how tired I was.

_And hungry,_ I thought as my stomach gave a loud rumble.

The old woman gave me a concerned glance before the door opened, revealing a middle-aged man in the doorway, squinting out at us in what appeared to be his nightclothes, with a woman that I assumed to be his wife standing timidly behind him, craning her neck to see who on earth had come calling at this hour.

"Mother!" the man cried softly, as if not wanting to be too loud this early in the morning. "It's been so long--!"

"Yes, yes, my dear," the old woman said as the man swept her into a hug and gestured for her to come inside, "but there's no time for that now, listen..."

I barely heard the conversation as the old woman described to her son and daughter-and-law where she had been, what had happened last night, and who I was (and also requested the wife to make me some food, for which I was immensely grateful). Their eyes got wider and wider in shock as she told her story, and eventually their wide eyes were upon me.

"...so I was thinking you could take this girl in, to keep her safe," the old woman finished, sounding slightly out of breath after ranting on and on.

As the wife bustled around the kitchen making me some food, the husband gazed at me as if sizing me up. I glanced up at him, fixing a sort of winning smile on my face as their eyes slid across my now-grubby dress, my muddy, mismatched shoes, my messy hair, and the exhausted look in my eyes. The woman placed a bowl of steaming broth and a spoon in front of me, and I wasted no time in picking up the bowl and taking several long draughts before it burned my throat. When finished with this revolting display of hunger, I realized that the married couple was staring at me. Gingerly placing the bowl of soup back on the table, I gave them a wide smile, feeling drops of the broth roll down my face.

While wiping my mouth hurriedly with my sleeve and feeling incredibly stupid, I saw the husband and wife glance at each other. She gave him a small nod.

"We'll take her," the man said, and the old woman looked relieved.

"Good, good...I must deliver this to the police..."

"What will you do then, mother?"

His mother gave him a wistful smile. "I'll run, won't I? The robbers will likely come looking for me, but the police should offer adequate protection."

"Stay with us, mother."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't want to impose. I'm only an old woman, after all. What help could I be to you?"

"You saved my life," I croaked from my place at the table, nearly burping up some soup as I said it.

The old woman gave me a kindly smile. "It was no trouble, child...I'm only sorry you had to see what happened to that poor girl..."

I looked away, thinking of the story I had read before that had described the butchering of the girl. If only I had been able to stop it somehow...

"...and please take good care of her; I don't even know where she came from..."

The old woman's voice wove in and out of my head as my eyelids drooped. The threesome stopped their conversation as I fell face-first into the bowl of soup, sound asleep.

I woke up some time later with a tender face and a rather sore nose. Wrinkling it a bit before opening my eyes, I recalled the events of last night.

My eyes shot open. Had I just been appointed as a servant girl to these people I didn't even know??

I sat bolt upright. This wasn't right, I couldn't be a servant, I needed to be free...I was a pirate, for God's sake!

I told myself to calm down, dropping my face in my hands but immediately picking it up again as the burns from last night's soup seared.

_I'm not a bloody pirate,_ I thought darkly, dropping back down to lay in the bed I found myself in. _Not here._

"Monica!"

I froze. Who the hell was calling me?

"Monica, it's time to get up!"

_Wha...?_ Then my heart sank.

_I'm a goddamn servant._

Now, you might think I was overreacting a bit to this whole servant thing. I mean, I could have run away whenever I wanted, right? Well, I might have, if it weren't for that minor detail of the murderous robbers on the rampage for the flesh of girls my age. Sure, maybe the old woman had gotten them arrested...but what if she had never made it?

According to the story I had read, this wasn't the case--they were caught and exectuted. But the story had also happened to a girl who was unwillingly engaged to one of the robbers, not some chick who had dropped in from the 21st century.

Okay, so maybe the robbers _had_ been arrested and/or executed. What was keeping me from running away then? Well, besides the fact that I had no knowledge whatsoever of where and when I was (besides that I was in Germany, of course) and my slim chances of finding my way out of the town without being seen and recognized as a runaway servant, nothing, really.

All this pondering had really pissed off the woman I was now working for.

"MONICA!! Get in here!"

Not at all liking the sound of her voice, I tried to scramble out of bed, but only managed to roll off in in the tangle of bedsheets. After hurriedly disentangling myself, I stumbled from room to room, wondering where the hell my mistress was.

I skidded to a halt in the kitchen, seeing her standing there with her hands on her hips and tapping her foot impatiently.

"Uh..." I said, making my spectacular intelligence known.

"What have you been doing?" she hissed, striding forward and seizing my arm. Too surprised to protest, I stumbled after her to the stove, where she released me forcefully.

_Good people, huh?_ I thought resentfully, rubbing my arm. I couldn't help giving the woman a glare.

"You should have been making breakfast ten minutes ago!" she shreiked, opening a cabinet, retreiving a pot, and chucking it at me.

I ducked it easily, having lots of experience with this sort of thing in the Pirates world.

"Now, thanks to you, John has had to work in the fields on an empty stomach!"

I wanted pretty badly to ask why she couldn't bring _her_ lazy ass to do it, but I didn't want to act rude just yet. After all, this woman's mother-in-law had had good intentions for me, and I didn't want to betray them.

"What are you standing there looking stupid for?!" she screamed when I didn't say anything.

"I could ask the same thing of you," I muttered resentfully without thinking.

As my blood quickly went cold, she snarled, "What did you say?"

"I said, 'Would you like me to make some stew?'" I said quickly and a little too loudly to be natural. She eyed me suspiciously before stomping off.

"Yeah, because I totally know how to make stew," I grumbled to myself, picking up the pot that had been thrown at me.

Sighing, I set the pot on its hook in the fireplace and looked around for ingredients. I finally found some odd-looking vegetables and some juicy meat, dumped it in the pot, which I had filled with water, and stoked a fire under it, something I found I could do quite easily with the flint I found lying around.

I was halfheartedly poking around at it with a wooden spoon remembering the time I had spent all day trying to light a fire when marooned when the Mistress from Hell came back.

"Aren't you done yet?" she snapped.

"Aren't you nice yet?" I muttered into the fireplace.

"What?"

"Nothing..."

"John is starving, and so am I! Are you nearly done?"

"No," I said darkly, not caring whether she starved or not.

The next thing I knew, she had moved closer to me, snatched the spoon, and was helping herself to a sample of my shitty stew. She spat it out almost immediately.

"Lord, who taught you how to cook?" she screeched, dropping the spoon and pressing the hem of her apron to her tongue as if trying to get rid of the taste.

"No one, that's the problem!" I said heatedly, feeling my temper rising.

"Don't you talk back to me!"

I mocked her behind her back as she turned, screwing up my face, sticking out my tongue, and mouthing, "Don't you talk back to me!"

I waited until she was safely out of earshot before bursting into angry grumbles about my situation. Who the hell shoved the stick up this lady's butt, anyway?

Days passed. I stumped around the house, dusting halfheartedly here and scrubbing a floor there. I wondered if my life was turning into that of Cinderella's, even though there were no ugly stepsisters. This woman I worked for was ugly enough for them, though.

She sometimes hissed insults at me when her husband wasn't around, but every time that happened I just looked at her, crossed my eyes, and gave her a goofy smile.

_Works every time,_ I thought after about the third time this had happened. _They never know what to think!_

I didn't know what to think, either. I wasn't used to doing all this servant stuff, not even in my own world--I mean, sure, I did a lot of chores, but this stuff involved milking cows, scrubbing the house, and cleaning up after John and his wife. This wasn't much fun, especially because indoor plumbing hadn't been invented yet, wherever/whenever I was.

You don't know how good you have it, people!

Anywho, I used all this cleaning time to think about why the hell my dryer would dump me somewhere like this, where I was a servant, opposed to a place where I went on great adventures and made a lasting friendship...

Man, I missed Jack. The initial shock of landing somewhere unfamiliar and witnessing the brutal murder of a girl right in front of me had worn off, and now I found myself thinking more and more about him, resenting everything I was doing here.

Why had what Alison, Michelle, and I experienced in the Pirates world been so different from what happened in At World's End? If I _did_ manage to get back to Jack's world, would it start where our story or where At World's End had ended?

_Why hadn't I gone back??_

It took me a while to figure that out.

Anyway, back to the story.

Sometimes when I was cleaning the master bedroom, I caught John's wife staring wistfully out the window, down below, as the room was on the second story of the house. At first I had assumed that she was watching John in the fields, but the I realized that she was staring down into the walled garden.

I had heard that it belonged to an enchantress, and that she forbade anyone to eat anything from her garden. I knew I had heard this kind of stuff in a story before, but I couldn't quite place it.

Until the wife starting pining away for what vegetable she wanted.

One night John brought up his wife's health at the table, commenting on how pale she looked lately. When asked why, she admitted that she had a craving for one of the plants in the enchantress's garden--rapunzel.

That's when it clicked.

The realization hit me with such force that it felt like I had been kicked in the chest. I began piecing it all together in my mind...

Rapunzel. That's what this story was turning out to be. I knew that the husband would steal some rapunzel for his wife, the enchantress would get pissed, and she'd take their first kid when they had it. She'd then take that kid, a daughter, and lock her in a tower, where she would grow up with her hair freakishly long. The enchantress would climb up it, prince came along, did the same, blah blah blah.

But I had remembered who had written that story: Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm.

A. K. A. those two cute brothers from the movie, right? So that meant that I was in their world, and I'd get to meet them, right??

God, I hoped so.

I snapped out of my reverie as John was saying, "I'll get you some rapunzel, dearest."

"I don't think that's a good idea," I said automatically, staring into space. As they both gave me strange looks, I shook myself and said, "That enchantress is gonna be sooo pissed..."

They stared at the huge grin that had just flown to my face. I was busy remembering The Brothers Grimm, thinking of Will and Jake, of Cavaldi, of Angelika, of the Mirror Queen...could this really be this world?

"Have you ever heard of the Brothers Grimm?" I blurted, not bothering to think.

"Excuse me?" the woman said, looking scandalized at being adressed by her servant at her dinner table. John, however, answered, "Why, of course! They're the two brave men who defeated the Mirror Queen!"

My face split into a wild grin again. All I could think of was how cute Heath Ledger had been as Jake in the movie.

"Please get me some rapunzel, my sweetheart," my mistress said quickly to John in a voice dripping with honey as she shot a warning glance at me. "If I don't have some to eat, I will surely die..."

She faked a cough as if trying to enforce her point. I made a skeptical noise in my throat, but as she shot me an evil glare, I too had to fake a cough.

"Mm-mmm!" I said, keeping my mouth tightly shut as I shook my head at my potatoes.

John gave an exasperated sigh. "Alright, but only this once..."

I snorted. In the story, he got her the herb twice.

Sure enough, he got her the herb twice, and it was only on that second time that anything happened--and it sure wasn't what I was expecting.


	4. Chapter 4

That evening, John climbed over the wall to the enchantress's garden to fetch his wife some rapunzel.

"See? Of course nothing's gone wrong, you silly girl," the woman sneered at me as she began making a salad with her precious herb.

"Well, duh," I said lazily, leaning against the wall with my arms folded, watching her seal her doom. "The enchantress probably hasn't even noticed it's gone yet. But trust me, she will, and when she does...!"

I shook my head as if expressing my pity for her. As I looked up, I saw that there was a flash of worry in her cold eyes.

"What will she do?" she asked, in a failed attempt to sound nonchalant about it, but I noticed a note of anxiety in her would-be cool voice.

I leaned closer to her, as if about to reveal something confidential. "She's gonna take your _baby_!" I whispered loudly, eyes wide to prove my point. "Can't get much more evil than that, can you?"

To my surprise, the woman didn't look horrified, just mean, as usual.

"Well, there's something you're wrong about," she said, casting bitter eyes on her fresh salad. "John and I can't have children."

She looked up at my dumbstruck face and gave a rueful smile.

"Yes, we've tried many times, but the Lord has not yet blessed us with child..." she sighed softly and I felt the closest thing to pity I had ever felt for her, or ever would, for that matter.

"I think the enchantress will have something to say about that," I said, recovering quickly.

I then didn't know what to say. It felt pretty cruel to tell a woman who couldn't have kids that the one child she _would_ have would be taken away from her.

Feeling awkward at the uncomfortable silence I had created, I sidled out of the kitchen and went to my small room, laying on my cot but not being able to fall asleep for hours.

The next day passed without incident, except for my mistress's incessant whining and moaning that she was simply _dying_ to have more of that scrumptious rapunzel. It wasn't until I muttered "I wish," resentfully under my breath that she even took the time to bitch at me for being a lousy cook.

Foolishly retorting that she had a lousy face, I found myself locked in my room for the majority of the day, which suited me fine, seeing as I didn't have to do any cleaning.

I started singing to myself to pass the time.

"Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, Monica," I warbled, grinning reminiscently at the foreign song I had found with my name as the title. I had no idea what it said besides these words, since it was in Chinese (I think!), so for all I knew, it could have been saying, "You're a dirty whore!", but I didn't care, because the song was so catchy.

I only paused in my disturbing of the piece when I heard raised voices outside. I had been laying on my back on my bed, feet propped up against the wall as they tapped out the beat to "Monica" by Leslie Cheung, but when I heard a loud voice I didn't recognize, I stopped in the middle of the song.

"Hmm?" I looked up, which was a bit difficult as it was hanging upside down off the bed in the position I was in. I quit tapping my feet and remained still, trying not to make a sound so as to hear the voices outside my room.

No luck--the voices were too muffled. Wait--they were getting clearer--they were nearer to my room--

My door crashed open. My mouth flew open, a surprising feat considering my head was upside down.

There, in the upside-down (to me) doorway, stood who could only be the enchantress. She was tall and slender, with long, shining silver hair. She wore a deep blue dress that reached down to the floor, as well as a dark purple cloak.

In the silence that resounded after this grand entrance, I said casually, "'Sup?"

As the enchantress narrowed her eyes at me, I rolled over with a groan. When I tried to look at her, however, I felt a little dizzy.

"Whoa--head rush," I said, blinking furiously. "Anyway--" I shook myself. "What can I do ya for?"

The enchantress cast her eyes over me appraisingly. It was only then that I saw my employers looking hopefully over her shoulder.

"You can take her--she's just as good as my daughter," the wife was saying anxiously.

"Wait, what?" I said stupidly.

"She'll do," the enchantress said. Her voice was deeper than I had expected, and commanded respect.

"Someone wanna tell me what's goin' on here?" I asked blankly, although I had a pretty good idea.

"Come with me," the enchantress said, stretching out a hand.

"Why?" I asked flatly.

I saw John and his wife exchange exasperated looks as the enchantress raised an eyebrow.

"You belong to me now," she said steadily, staring at me with stormy eyes.

"What!" I spluttered. "What is it with me and being handed over to people lately?!"

"Come with me, or I'll take you by force," the enchantress said calmly.

"Well, you're gonna have to "take me by force", 'cause I'm not--"

The enchantress chick had moved closer to me and was now looking deep into my eyes. Raising a hand, she drew her fingers and thumb together slowly, and I felt my eyelids droop.

"Damn, you're good," I grumbled before blacking out.

I woke up with a start, yelling something about a kraken, when I realized that I didn't know where I was.

Being quite used to being in this kind of situation, I merely sighed and looked around, wondering where on earth I could be this time--although I thought I had a pretty good idea.

I didn't get to look around much, though, for I felt a strange sensation on my back. I froze, realizing what it was.

Slowly turning my head, I discovered that my hair had grown a ridiculous amount. It flowed down to my butt, off the bed I was on, and onto the floor, where a bunch of it was coiled.

"HOLY SHIT!!" I screeched. Eh, maybe I was overreacting, but you try waking up to find your hair grown that much without freaking out.

"Calm down," an irritated voice said from behind me.

Jumping and letting out an odd yelp, I whirled on the bed to see the enchantress standing on the other side of the room.

Sighing exasperatedly, I dropped my face into my shaking hands to try to calm myself down. Swallowing hard, I croaked, "Why me?"

The enchantress seemed a bit taken aback that my first question hadn't been "Where am I?" or "Who are you?"

"Your master informed me that his wife was incapable of having children," she said in a flat, nearly toneless voice. "He volunteered you to come with me instead."

I cocked my head, trying to ignore the feeling of all that hair I wasn't used to. "Why do you want to keep me locked in a tower, exactly?"

The enchantress frowned at me and narrowed her eyes again. I then realized what I had said--I wasn't supposed to know that I was in a tower, much less that I was supposed to be locked away in it!

Figuring there was no way to rectify my mistake, I simply sat and stared at her, awaiting an answer. Finally, she answered, "They needed to be punished for stealing my herbs."

I laughed. "Oh, trust me, I don't think they'll mind that I'm gone," I said, remembering how much the woman, at least, had hated me.

"But I rid them of a servant," the enchantress lady said calmly. "Now they will have to do more work themselves.

I nodded in thought. "Good point," I mused. "But why lock me in a tower? Why not kill me? Not that I'd want that, of course," I added quickly.

I was getting a little uncomfortable under her steady stare. "I've always wanted a daughter," she said with no emotion whatsoever.

With that, she crossed to the single window in the room, motioning for me to join her. Fully aware of what was to come, I cringed and slouched to the window, pouting.

"Now, I want you to--" the enchantress began.

"Let you climb down on my hair, I know," I said glumly. "Man, this is gonna hurt..."

The enchantress stared at me a bit more, but didn't say anything. I wondered if I should be more careful in revealing what I knew, but figured that there wasn't much of a point.

The enchantress took my hair and wound it around a set of hooks above the window. When satisfied that it would hold her, she dropped the remaining tresses out the window and climbed out herself.

"OW!!!" I screeched, seizing the roots of my hair. I staggered closer to the wall, bracing my hands against it and gritting my teeth.

"Why was it never mentioned how painful this is in the fairy tale?" I growled through clenched teeth. "Ohh--!"

I tried my hardest not to cry out in pain as the enchantress made her way down the tower, but it was difficult.

"TAKE YOUR GODDAMN TIME!!" I bellowed out the window when the pain from my head seemed to have lasted about an hour. A few minutes later, I was trying to tug my hair back up the window to try to alleviate the pain. All of this was punctuated with obnoxious yells of pain, with copius amounts of swearing.

Finally, _finally_, the stupid, heavy enchantress reached the ground. As she jumped off my hair, the weight that seemed to be lifted off my head made me stumble back into the room, which made the hair that was tangled in the hooks pull on my scalp, which put me in even more pain.

Moaning pathetically, I slowly unwound my hair from the hooks and hoisted it up through the window. Glancing outside, I saw that the enchantress was gone.

"Probably off to go scalp a kitten," I grumbled as I flung my hair back into the room.

I now noticed the forest my tower was in. Trees nearly as tall as the tower itself surrounded it, and even though I was so high up in the air, I couldn't see a clearing in the trees for miles.

My scalp throbbing, I waded through the hair that was spread on the floor of my room and flopped down on my bed, panting. When I tried to roll over, I found myself tangled in a bunch of my own brown hair.

Cursing under my breath, I sat up and pulled it away from my face, standing up a little so I wasn't sitting on it.

Further inspection of the room I was locked in proved that there was a silver brush laying on a table next to the bed. Taking it eagerly, I attacked my alarmingly long hair with it, figuring I had nothing better to do than sit there and brushe it all day so I might be able to get it into a braid or something.

It didn't take as long as I thought it would--my new was surprisingly managable, not to mention sleek and shiny. In fact, it looked a lot better than my usually messy, just-past-shoulder-length brown hair.

I managed to get all that hair into a braid, something that took a while because of my clumsy fingers. But eventually, I had it braided, using two black ribbons I had found. Convenient, eh?

Anyway, once I was done with that chore, I got really bored. So, of course, I started to sing and dance.

It started with a bit of humming of the song that was stuck in my head--and it all went downhill from there.

"Sex bomb, sex bomb, you're my sex bomb! And you can give it to me when I need to come along..."

I was perfectly fine with singing at the top of my lungs, however off-key I may have been, because I thought no one could hear me. But, of course, someone did. I should have known how that kind of stuff usually works out for me.

Luckily, the person who heard me singing couldn't see me dancing, though. I'm a terrible dancer, really--even if I try to look cool, I give up after a while because I think I look stupid. Which I do.

Anyway, the day went by with me singing "Sex Bomb" by Tom Jones in a vain effort to get it out of my head (it didn't work). I sang some other stuff, too, mostly catchy pop/hip-hop songs because they're more fun to sing than my usual favorites. Some memorable ones were "Fergalicious" by Fergie, "Be My Bad Boy" by Cascada, and "Wrong Way" by Sublime. Okay, so the last one isn't a pop song--I just like singing the vulgar lyrics, okay? So sue me.

Anyway, I was realllllly bored all day. I had nothing to do but play with my hair and sing and dance to myself. Eventually, night fell, and I was nearly hoarse from singing loudly all day, thinking no one would here me.

Boy, how wrong I was.

I was humming to myself and twirling my long, thick braid around the handle of the brush when I heard a voice down from the ground.

"About freakin' time," I muttered to myself, tossing the brush away carelessly. Now I had to let that stupid woman climb up my hair again...although I had figured that putting more hair loosely on the hooks and keeping hold on it would tone down the pain a bit. It alleviated some of the weight on my scalp and saved me a lot of screaming and bitching.

Anyway, I dropped my hair down, not even bothering to look down there. I was sure I had heard "Rapunzel" and "hair", so what was the point? Only the enchantress came here, and only she knew about it. True, in the story, a prince came, but I seriously doubted that happening--that had happened way late in the story, and anyone who had heard my singing would have been frightened off, not charmed.

I felt the uncomfortable pull on my hair as someone took hold of it. Grimacing, I turned back to face the room, trying to find a comfortable way to hold my hair.

Glancing around the room as I waited for the enchantress to climb up, I realized that I didn't know where the brush was.

_I must have accidentally shoved it under the bed,_ I thought. Luckily, the room wasn't that big, and I was able to scoot close to the bed pretty easily due to the amount of loose hair in my hands. I managed to get into a sort of lay-crouch thing and pawed under the bed with one hand, the other still with a handful of tresses raised above me to prevent it getting yanked out of my head.

"_There_ you are, you little bastard--" I grumbled, feeling my fingers brush the, well, brush. I scrabbled at it until I had a good hold on it, sighed trimphantly, and stood up just as someone fell through the window.

I laughed, still examining the brush to pick bits of dust off of it. "What, did you get drunk out there or something?" I cracked, dropping the brush to my side and turning around.

Jake Grimm was standing there, twitchily brushing off his trousers and adjusting the bag at his side.

I let out a little squeak of surprise.

He stared at me in shock. I stared back, barely aware that my mouth had dropped stupidly open and that I didn't need to hold my braid over my head anymore.

"Wow," he said with a little laugh. "Wow!" He seemed thoroughly excited. "Oh, my--" He revolved on the spot, looking around the tower exultantly. "This is--" He looked at me abruptly. "You're Rapunzel, aren't you?" he asked, his voice cracking, barely able to contain his excitement. "Oh, what am I saying, you've never even seen a man before--" His eyes widened slightly behind his round glasses and he seemed to check himself, nervously smoothing his hair and fiddling with his bag.

I wanted to say something eloquent, something charming, something sweet at the very least.

But you know me.

"Holy crap!" I exclaimed.

He stared at me, frowning slightly.

I dropped onto the bed, still staring at him and finally dropping my arm and the brush. "I don't--" I gestured at him weakly. "I'm not--" I gestured at myself. "_Man!_" I breathed, a hand on my chest.

An unsure smile lit up his face. How adorable!

"Yes, I'm a man," he said, taking my interjection the wrong way and smiling. "This is really real, then, isn't it?" he asked, looking up and around the tower again, that look of surprised happiness back on his face. "I knew it--oh, wait till I tell Will I found Rapunzel--" he turned back to the window as if intending to yell down the tower.

"I'm not Rapunzel," I blurted. He looked back at me, looking confused and slightly crestfallen. "You're not?" he asked, frowning.

"Well, I mean, _technically_ I am, but that's not my name." I said quickly.

"What's your name?" he asked cautiously, clearly not knowing what the hell to make of me.

"Monica," I said, and a grin slid involuntarily onto my face. "I'm Monica Connors, it's awesome to meet you," I said suddenly, getting up from the bed to shake his hand.

He smiled again, still uncertainly. _He's so goddamn cute,_ I found myself thinking widly as I shook his hand much too vigorously. "You act like you know me," he said, kind of shyly.

"I do!" I exclaimed, before tact could invade my now clouded mind.

"You...do?" Again the confusion, again the cuteness.

"You're Jake Grimm!" I said, grinning up at him. "Of course I know you, who doesn't know you?" I said, half to myself, my eyes floating away from his face to stare at the wall behind him. _This is weird,_ I thought suddenly, and realized that I still had a firm grip on his hand.

I dropped it immediately. "Sorry," I said breathlessly, beaming up at him. He smiled and nodded, still looking a little weirded out. Damn!

"Are you...foreign?" he asked, a slight frown creasing his brow again.

"Uhh...yeah," I said. "I'm from...America," I replied, giving him a weak smile.

He stared at me for a moment, then shook his head slightly. "I'm sorry--haven't you been in here since you were a baby?" he asked. Hee, I loved his voice, going all high and stuff...heh.

"Umm..." Would he like me less if I told him that this was my first day in here??

I was spared answering by a horrifying sound.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" said a the deep, flat voice of the enchantress.

Our eyes met and widened in shock.

"What do we do?" he mouthed, flinging his hands around and turning as if looking for an exit.

"The bed, get under the bed!" I hissed, grabbing him and steering him towards it. "Sorry!" I whispered as I shoved him down, hurrying to wind my braid in the hooks and drop it out the window.

As the enchantress grabbed hold, I glanced desperately back to the bed. Amazingly, Jake had scrambled under there in record time, and was now yanking his bag under with him.

"Nice job!" I whispered as the enchantress entered the room.

"What?" she asked, still in the monotone voice.

"Nothin'," I said quickly, seizing my braid and clasping my hands behind my back innocently.

She stared at me without any expression I could read. I slapped a wide smile on my face and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, mostly to keep away from her and to possibly block her view from Jake than anything.

"Who were you speaking with?" she asked abruptly.

"What? Myself," I replied nervously, grinning at her. "I get lonely up here," I said, gazing at her with wide, innocent eyes.

"You've been up here for one day," she said flatly.

Dammit! No doubt Jake heard that. I just forced a smile as her eyes scanned the room. I knew it was hopeless even before Jake sneezed.

Her narrowed eyes darted to the place under the bed. I coughed loudly, but to no avail--he sneezed again, louder this time.

The enchantress seized my arm and heaved me off the bed. Then she pointed a finger at it and sent it flying against the wall, revealing Jake lying flat on his stomach, still sneezing.

The enhchantress rounded on me. "Who is this?!" she snarled, her eyes red with rage.

"Uhh, the poolboy?" I tried, grinning sheepishly. She let out a roar and pointed a finger at Jake, who covered his head with his hands and began to tremble pathetically on the ground.

"Leave him alone!" I shouted, shoving her hand away. Now she grabbed me instead, twisting her hand three times in my hair. She conjured a pair of scissors out of nowhere and cut it off in one cut.

"Try getting out now!" she sneered at Jake, who was now sitting up, pressed against the wall, watching in shock as she threw my hair down at my feet and shoving me away from her.

"Hey, I was getting used to that!" I yelled, more to distract her than in real anger.

As she turned to me, I punched her in the face. She sure wasn't expecting that! Although the punch wasn't very strong, she was still sent reeling out of shock. I grabbed the table and raised it to defend myself, moving over next to Jake, who had stood up and now had his hands raised in surrender.

She seemed to swell in fury. Although the night had been a still one, a sinister wind seemed to blow through the tower, throwing my newly sheared hair into my eyes and face.

"Maybe I shouldn't have pissed her off," I said in a small voice, huddling closer to Jake as he tried to hide behind the table I was using as a sheild.

She raised her hands in the air, surely about to preform a deadly spell, but then there was a THUD and her eyes went wide. Suddenly she jerked backward out of the window, and I could see that there was some sort of hook lodged in her back.

I let out an involuntary squeak of horror. I dropped the table and ran to the window, throwing my head out to look down--but it was too dark to see down there.

Jake appeared at my side, shaking slightly. "What just happened?" he asked me, his voice cracking slightly.

I was about to answer when a hand seized each of his and yanked him headfirst out of the window.

I screamed as I heard his yell getting further and further away and then a sickening CRACK and thud.

I froze in horror. What--that--had that just happened??

I heard a groan from below--it was Jake, I recognized his voice!

"What happened?" I shouted, almost hysterical.

"I fell on her--" Another groan. "Oh my God, I think I've killed her--my glasses, I broke my glasses!"

Though shocked at the enchantress's demise, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Jake wasn't hurt--but what had that hook been?

"Fat Christ!" another voice said from below. "She moved in front of the window just when I fired!"

What the--Will Grimm??

"I know you didn't mean to, Will," Jake's voice said, groaning slightly. "Look--the thorns pierced right through the glass--I think--"

Will groaned. "You can't see a thing without those!"

"It doesn't matter--" Jake said distractedly. "Monica?" he called tentatively. "Are you alright?"

"Monica? Who's Monica?" I heard Will ask before answering. "Yeah, I'm--I'm okay, just a little...wow," I breathed. I realized that my knuckles had turned white on the sill of the window and released my hands, flexing them to try to get the feeling back.

"Just wait, I'll come up for you--" Jake said, sounding shaky but excited again.

"That'd be great," I responded, glancing down at the hair on the floor. The braid had unraveled and spread about in the hubbub, making it useless to climb down with.

"Jake, don't be ridiculous, you can't even see," Will said, sounding exasperated.

Will--!" I heard some hurried whispering below, and realized that they were fighting again, as they did so often in the movie. Then I heard a wet-sounding _thuck_ and sickened groans from below--someone had removed the hook from the enchantress's back.

"Alright, stand back!" I heard Jake call. As I backed into the wall, it hit me that he had probably wanted to be the one to rescue me, because I was "part of the story".

Damn, being the damsel in distess was nice.

I heard a shot from below and jumped as the metal clanged onto the stone sill. It still had blood on it. Looking away queasily, I waited nervously, brushing my fingers through my cropped hair.

Finally a glasses-less Jake appeared at the window again. My face split into a grin when I saw him, and he grinned too in turn. He looked elated, but also like he was trying not to let it show. "Come on, I'll bring you down," he said after climbing into the window, looking at me shyly.

Now I couldn't help grinning. He was just too cute. I shyly went towards him, and he awkwardly positioned his hands around me so he could sort of carry me down. At this point, I let out an involuntary giggle, immediately feeling like an idiot. Why did I feel so damn giddy?

Once we were perched on the window, however, all that giddiness vanished like the light in the tower. The dark night stretched out before us, and there was no light from the moon or the stars.

"Ohh, no," I whispered shakily.

"Hang on," Jake said, and began lowering us down.

I clutched to him, absolutely terrified. I had never been a big fan of heights, and although I couldn't see the ground, I could certainly imagine where it was--and how it would feel to hit it.

Once the rope slipped, and I screamed and grabbed tighter to Jake, breathing heavily. I wasn't sure, but I think he was smiling slightly, almost guiltily.

Of course, he was enjoying this! He was rescuing the imprisoned girl from the evil witch! Plus, her pressing against him couldn't have been a drawback, either, hahaha. :D ...I shouldn't flatter myself.

Aaaaaanyway, we made it to the ground. My eyes had nearly adjusted to the darkness yet, and I was able to sidestep the enchantress's body at the last minute. Jake, however, couldn't see much without his glasses, much less in the dark, and he tripped over her with a grunt.

"Oops!" I hurried to grab his arm and help him up. He looked pretty embarrassed, and I was glad he couldn't see Will putting his face in his hand and shaking his head.

As Jake brushed the dirt off of his clothes, I noticed Will peering at me in the darkness.

"You must be Rapunzel. I mean, Monica, or whatever," he said, sounding a bit dry.

"Yeah, it's Monica," I said, trying to get a good look at him. This was weird...Matt Damon and Heath Ledger...I mean, Will and Jake Grimm...and I thought the Pirates world was strange!

"We should get going," Jake said, looking a few feet to the right of Will.

"Are you joking?" Will asked, tapping Jake's face and turning it toward him. "We can't go anywhere in this forest in the dark, and you don't have your glasses, anyway." He glanced at me. "And we have a new companion, apparently."

"Huh?" I said, shaking myself slightly. I had simply been drinking in the moment, not bothering to think of what would happen next. "Oh, right--yeah, what're we gonna do?" I asked.

"'We'?" Will asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah, didja expect to leave me here with the corpse or somethin'?" I asked dubiously.

I could tell from their silence that they hadn't really thought about what would happen in this situation.

"I need some new glasses," Jake said tentatively, waving his arms around. I jumped as his arm brushed my shoulder. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"No problem," I answered. "Are we gonna make camp for the night? 'Cause I'd like to do it, you know, away from here," I said lamely.

"Again with the 'we'," Will muttered, turning away with his hands on his hips and shaking his head as if willing someone else to deal with me.

"We can't just leave her here, Will," Jake said, his hands now catching Will in the chest. Will brushed them away before answering impatiently, "Well, it's not like we can just take her with us!"

"Why not?" I asked curiously.

"Darling, we're the Brothers Grimm, not the Brothers Grimm and friends," he answered irritably. "We travel alone."

"Why?" Jake said, now trying to grab the air with his flailing hands.

"Jake, we can't take her story-hunting with us!" Will said, seeming flustered.

"Oh, _now_ you're all _for_ story-hunting," Jake muttered sarcastically. "Before you were complaining about how you just wanted to settle in some inn with good wine and good women."

"Really?" I asked interestedly.

"Really," Jake said as I dodged his wandering hands.

"Oh, fine, so I don't like this story-hunting either!" Will shouted. "But we can't lug her around with us; she'll just get in the way."

"No, I won't!" I said quickly just as Jake blurted, "No, she won't!" I grinned at him, but he obviously couldn't see it.

Will groaned and looked up to the sky.

"Come on, it's not like you can do anything tonight," I said coaxingly, trying to reason with him. "Let's just sleep and we can decide what to do in the morning."

"Yes, but where will _you_ sleep? We only have two packs," Will said coolly.

"She can use mine!" Jake volunteered. I think my heart melted just then at the the eagerness in his voice.

"No, that's okay, I don't--" I began, but he cut across me.

"No, I insist, you shouldn't have to sleep on the ground," he said shyly.

"Neither should you, you saved my life!" I retorted.

I think the air around his face got warmer as he blushed. As he struggled to answer, Will burst out, "Oh, for Pete's sake, girl, just take his damn sleeping place so I can get some sleep!"

In the end, Will grabbed Jake's sleeping stuff from his horse, which had been tethered in the forest so as to hide from the enchantress, and gave it to me as Jake wandered around blindly. Will and I had to grab him repeatedly to keep him from running into the tower or straying off into the woods. As he settled down on one of the blankets his pack had contained (we were sure to set up camp on the side of the tower the corpse _wasn't_ on), he asked me in a would-be-causal voice if he hadn't been twirling a short lock of hair around his finger, "So, how did you end up in that tower, anyway?" as if he had been dying to ask that question all night.

But Will answered before I did. "Leave it for tomorrow so I can get some bloody sleep," he said from his bed.

"Tomorrow, then," I whispered to Jake, who nodded and lapsed into his usual wriggling sleep. I remained awake for a long time afterward, listening to Will's deep breathing and Jake's mumblings (which, I was thrilled to hear, included "Monica" and "Rapunzel" in them), contemplating my place in this world.


	5. Chapter 5

As I woke up to the foresty smells of my surroundings, my immediate thought was that I was camping. I opened my eyes to a blue sky lined with trees, inhaled earthy soil, and rolled over to see myself next to Jakob Grimm.

Oh yeah. I had been a witness to murder and cannibalism, a servant to a mistress from hell, and Rapunzel for a day and rescued by the adorable man next to me, who was currently squirming and muttering in his sleep.

Not exactly a typical camping trip for me, but considering how my life had been going this summer...yeah, I'd say that's pretty normal for me.

I was now wide-awake and grinning. I tried to sit up in a flash, but was sorer than usual from sleeping on the ground. At my groan Jake jerked and slowly opened his eyes.

I could practically see the memories from last night going through his head. His eyes darted to me as if hardly daring to believe I was real. Embarrassed, I gave him a shy smile and mustered a charming "'Sup?"

He seemed to try to sit up quickly just as I had, but groaned at the soreness in his muscles. Guilt struck me as I recalled his insistence on giving me his sleeping pack for the night.

"Uh, sorry...'bout the..." I stammered over my words as he stretched and yawned in probably the adorablest way I had ever seen it done.

He blinked at me blearily with his glasses-less eyes. "No no, it's fine," he said quickly, catching on to what I meant. "See? I'm fine." He jumped up to prove his point but lurched over, grimacing. "Owww..."

I got up too, wanting to help but not knowing how. I managed to slur out a few more apologies as he began the stretching routine I recognized from the movie...you know, I don't think I was ever really going to get over the weirdness of my dryer...

When Jake stopped, he was standing much too close--at first I felt a rush at the thought that he was trying to hug me, but then I sheepishly remembered his busted glasses. Feeling like a dumbass, I stepped back a bit, as much as I didn't really want to. Heh.

"Did you have a good sleep?" Jake asked, his adorable voice cracking as he squinted at me, half his face scrunched up.

I tried not to giggle. What was it with me being so girlish lately? Damn his cuteness..."Yeah," I said lamely. "It was...uh...yeah." I felt my face redden.

"Yeah," he repeated, his face coloring a bit too. This only made me even more embarrased--yet giddy. I let out that giggle I had been trying to supress and swore under my breath, earning a quizzical look--well, squint--from Jake.

It appeared my giggle had been enough to wake Will up. "What the hell--" he muttered as he rolled over. Then he, like Jake, stared at me as if fully remembering the events of the night before. "Fat Christ," he said simply, then dropped back down with a dejected sigh.

Jake whipped around to face him, scandalized. "Will, she's standing right here!" he stage-whispered incredulously.

Will turned his head to give Jake a sardonic look that he couldn't see. "Are you confirming her existence or defending her?" he asked dryly, causing Jake to blush again.

"Sorry," he mumbled, turning back to me. "He's a little--"

"Tired of all this gallivanting around," Jake said loudly, getting up with the apparently guaranteed groan and stretching. "And now we have someone else to worry about. Joy."

So his mood hadn't improved since last night. Great. "I won't be any trouble," I told him, not really knowing what better to way to put it than that. I didn't know what they were doing specifically, right? It wasn't like I could assure him that I'd sit on the sidelines while they banished a witch or something, but I had to convince him to let me travel with them--this was just too great an opportunity to pass up!

"Of course you won't," Will said brightly, standing up and beginning to pack his things. "We're dropping you off at the next town we reach. Isn't that right, Jake?"

Jake and I both exploded into protests, mine insisting that maybe I could help them with whatever it was they were doing, his self-consciously but stubbornly informing him that I was important.

Will sighed and rolled his eyes at our twin tirades. "Alright, enough!" he shouted over us. "I've got enough of a headache already."

"Then I'll be quiet as a _mouse_!" I said, putting empasis by gesturing fiercely. Will glared at me, and I realized the time for fighting was over. "Sorry," I mumbled, clasping my hands behind my back.

"Look, I know we can't just leave you here in the forest," Will reasoned, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut in exasperation. "So I don't really have a problem with you coming with us...for now," he added as both mine and Jake's faces brightened momentarily.

"What if before we get to the town, I prove to you that I'm an invaluable asset?" I asked, grinning winningly as if I had just made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

Will just looked at me dryly, unimpressed. "Darling, to do that you'd have to impress the famous Brothers Grimm, hunters of evil," he stated, smirking slightly as if he had beaten me.

"Well, I think Jake's already impressed," I said bluntly. Jake, who had been rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably at Will's not-entirely-true description of them, let out a sheepish "Huh? No! I mean, well..." I grinned at him, amused by his demeanor, and he trailed off into silence, a lopsided grin coming to his face.

"Disgusting," Will muttered. "Fine, girl, you travel with us. If, for some unthinkable reason, we find you _beneficial_ to us--" the expression on his face showed just how unlikely he considered that to be--"you can stay with us past the next town. Though by the way..." he frowned and paused in his act of saddling up his horse. "Why exactly is it that you want so desperately to travel with us?"

"Uhh..." I said stupidly as I searched my mind for a viable explanation. "'Cause...I'm y'all's biggest fan?" I gave a goofy grin that I hoped looked endearing, shrugging a bit.

"What's 'y'all'?" Jake asked curiously.

"Probably some foreign jargon," Will said contemptously. I was about to get on him for bashing Texas but then figured it wouldn't help my case any--besides, did Texas even exist yet? Damn my history ignorance!

"Alright, I don't really care," Will was saying, jerking me out of my thoughts about Texas. "It's not like you'll be with us for long anyway."

I frowned. "Why, where's the next town?" I asked suspiciously.

"A few days away. Bremen," Jake piped up. I wondered why he hadn't been speaking much lately, but then the name of the town sparked something in the back of my mind.

"Bremen..." I said thoughtfully, furrowing my brow. "Do, like...musicians play there or something? Or is it...no...hmm..."

Will stared at me as if I were insane. Jake kinda did too, I noticed.

I jerked my head up at this realization. "Wow, I'm not helping myself stay, huh?" I offered with a too-hearty laugh. Seeing their weirded-out faces, I sighed and dropped the act. "Just ignore me, I'm a freak," I muttered, mostly to myself. _From the future.___

_"_No kidding," Will said dryly. Jake, however, looked a bit cautious but otherwise intrigued. The familiar giddy feeling returned, for which I was grateful. My thoughts were preoccupied with how the hell I would earn my stay with them. I was too excited by their presence to want to leave! Plus, my previous experiences had proven that when I was with "main characters," as it were, I had some pretty exciting adventures. Of course, I had been through a lot here before meeting the brothers, but still...not being with them in their world just seemed wrong.

To say the least...I got my adventure, all right!


End file.
